In 2006 the American development agency USAid described Mali as "one of the most enlightened democracies in all of Africa". "Mali stands out as a stable democracy in the midst of the troubled west African region," it claimed, in a leaflet accompanied by a photograph of an imam in the world heritage town Djenné, with its mud-brick architecture and faded medieval grandeur, gazing up at a computer screen as he researches his sermon online. As the leaflet goes on to extol the virtues of USAid projects in Mali, the imam is an unwitting symbol of the aid spending that Mali's "model" democracy so unquestioningly legitimised.

Seven years later, the terms most frequently used to describe Mali's democracy during that era are "sham", "facade" and "empty shell". Reality came abruptly to the fore in March last year, when relatively low-ranking soldiers seized power in a military coup. Within a month a region the size of France was under the control of first Tuareg rebels and then al-Qaida-linked jihadists, who implemented sharia law and brought national governance to an end.

With hindsight everyone acknowledges that the cracks in Mali's democracy were deep. The coup – often described as "accidental" because of the absence of government resistance to mutinying soldiers – is glaring evidence that all was not well. In fact the then president, Amadou Toumani Touré, known as "ATT" more out of derision than any sense of affection, was viewed as deeply corrupt and incapable of delivering the changes that Mali – still one of the five least-developed countries in the world – needed. Elections in 2002 and 2007 were riddled with irregularities and had a very low turnout.

In line with the argument that many west African governments have become, to a large extent, receptacles for the administration of foreign aid, Mali's successive governments stand accused of doing what was necessary to pacify donors and little else. Planes loaded with cocaine were landing in the Sahel – it's hard to imagine unknown to local and national government – and the president was believed to be contracting services from well-known drug lords.

Western donors were not going to allow these details to interfere with their narrative about Mali's model democracy. They were too busy touting the achievements of aid programmes, enjoying tourism in the desert, and (especially in France's case) romanticising the Tuareg, whom they regarded as mysterious, blue-robed, Saharan versions of the medieval knights. And now, in a twisted series of ironies, the international community is sowing the seeds of yet more discord by imposing its own timeline for a return to elected civilian rule, and applying irresistible pressure by making aid worth £3 billion available only if Mali complies.

As a result Mali's elections will probably not be regarded as legitimate by the 1.2 million potential voters who have not been registered, or the thousands of others left off the new roll. Reports of a "glitch" are an understatement. If you are a Malian who is 18; or who lives in Morocco, as thousands of Malians do; or have been displaced by the war to a neighbouring country, as about 200,000 have; or live in one of hundreds of villages where fewer than five people made it on to the register, then you probably won't be voting on Sunday.

Then there's the security situation. France, Mali's former colonial master, launched a surprise military intervention in January, which was joined by other African troops who have now been scooped up into the umbrella of a UN peacekeeping force. But the strategically crucial Kidal region in the far north of the country remains a rebel Tuareg stronghold. Voting is only being allowed to take place there following an uneasy peace agreement which saw the rebels allow government and UN forces in but where, just last weekend, five election officials were kidnapped at gunpoint.

Throughout the north life is yet to return to normal, and women, who were especially persecuted by the jihadist occupiers, are still conspicuously absent, especially at night. And not to be understated are the seasonal factors. It's raining. It's Ramadan. In short, most of Mali's rural population will be farming and fasting, not trying to overcome bureaucratic inadequacies and security threats to turn up at polling stations whose locations are unknown because the voter cards were printed in too much of a rush to include them.

Why is Mali being rushed into elections when it is so far from being ready? The US has suggested, unbelievably, that Somalia is the model. Military intervention, the theory goes, creates security; elections are then needed as quickly as possible to provide governments who can legitimise the military gains. Or, as it has been more succinctly put, "shoot and vote".

France, meanwhile, has taken a more direct approach, telling Malians how fortunate they are to have been rescued by their former coloniser. "You're celebrating a new kind of independence, not from colonialism but from terrorism!" exclaimed President François Hollande earlier this year.

The international community has to confront the reality that, in forcing Malians to the ballot box too soon, it is repeating the mistakes of the past. And in doing so, what can it expect other than that Mali too will repeat the mistakes of its past.